Dunn County CJCC executive committee discusses 2025 grant oversight, Crime Prevention Board administration

Members of the Dunn County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) executive and operations committee met remotely and, without a quorum, discussed several substantive items to send to the full council for action at the February meeting.

The committee focused on grant oversight for 2025, law-enforcement deflection and diversion coordination, the DNA-collection and warrant-fee processes, and a request that CJCC assume administration of the county Crime Prevention Board and its grant fund.

Why it matters: The committee will ask the full CJCC and the County Board to accept or act on identified grants that include $100,000 for treatment-court enhancements and a $250,000-per-year law-enforcement opioid-abatement award. Separately, putting the county Crime Prevention Board under CJCC oversight would open a statutory surcharge fund for competitive grants after the balance reaches usable levels.

Grant oversight and program uses

Sarah (CJCC staff) told the committee the CJCC is “up to seven grants,” with two new awards proposed for 2025 and that the group intends to combine reporting and monitoring into a single oversight process. She said she will take two grant resolutions to the County Board for acceptance: a $100,000 state Treatment, Alternatives and Diversion (TAD) award for treatment-court enhancements and a $250,000-per-year Department of Health Services law-enforcement opioid-abatement grant.

According to Sarah, the TAD funds would pay for additional therapist time on the treatment-court team, a peer-support liaison, training and travel, and enhanced drug testing to detect emerging substances and tampering. She described the opioid-abatement award as funding a caseworker to work with Project HOPE staff and behavioral-health officers (named in the meeting as Erin Berg and Dylan Crist), supplies and office outfitting, travel, outreach materials, and expanded subcontracted hours with Kaleidoscope at its Menomonie site and satellite offices in smaller communities including Boyceville.

Crime Prevention Board and fund status

Marshall Moltoff, who identified himself as the law-enforcement liaison for the Crime Stoppers board, reviewed the statute and the board’s history. He said the controlling statute is cited as “595428” and that Dunn County approved a local resolution creating a Crime Prevention Board in October 2020. According to Moltoff, the clerk of courts made the first deposit into the fund in April 2021 and the current balance is $9,321.26. He estimated the Crime Stoppers program’s annual operating cost at about $3,000.

Moltoff asked that CJCC assume the administrative duties for the Crime Prevention Board once the fund has sufficient balance to award grants. He said doing so would include notifying statutorily required members, soliciting grant applications, awarding funds to qualified nonprofit applicants, and requiring recipient reporting, all as outlined in the statute. He said he has drafted notice letters and application forms and can provide them to committee members.

DNA collection and warrant fees

Committee members discussed a separate operational review of the county’s DNA-collection and warrant-fee processes. The group agreed to invite Stephanie Hilton (name provided by meeting participants) to present at the next CJCC meeting or by Zoom to help map current procedures and identify gaps. The committee also discussed involving county staff who handle warrants; one member noted the sheriff’s office believes warranted fees are not being fully collected and that mapping the process could identify why.

Next steps and meeting logistics

Because the executive meeting lacked a quorum, members agreed to move the items—grant resolutions and the request to take over the Crime Prevention Board—onto the full CJCC agenda for the quarterly meeting on Feb. 20 (as scheduled in the meeting). Sarah said she would circulate materials a week before that meeting (requested by committee members for Feb. 13). The committee’s regular operations meeting will resume on the first Wednesday at 11 a.m.; the next such meeting was noted as March 5.

Attendance, context and caveats

The meeting was held without a quorum, so no formal votes were taken. Several items discussed require County Board approval or further action by full CJCC before changes take effect. Where participants provided dollar amounts, fund balances, statute citations, or program costs during the discussion, the article reports those figures as stated by speakers in the meeting.